


some chosen curse

by thisbluespirit



Category: Enemy at the Door (TV)
Genre: 1930s, 1940s, Backstory, Character Death, Community: genprompt_bingo, Community: hc_bingo, Dark, Episode: s01e10 Treason, M/M, Nazis, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Soldiers, Suicide, World War I, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 14:21:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13836576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit
Summary: "He is an honourable man... they arebothhonourable men."General Laidlaw, Generalmajor von Wittke and the road to treason.





	some chosen curse

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo square "atonement" and Genprompt Bingo square "A test of worthiness."
> 
> “Treason” is an odd episode, but I am fascinated by these one-off characters and their enigmatic backstory. Many of the details here are given by the episode, but others I’ve invented (including von Wittke’s given name, courtesy of my Dreamwidth flist).
> 
> With thanks to Persiflage for the beta. Everything else, however, is entirely my fault.

Major General George Laidlaw has always lived by rules: he’s a soldier, he has his duty, his honour. These are things he’s understood since before he can remember. After all, that’s what so much of the Latin and Greek they teach you at school is about – Caesar’s wars, and Trojan battles – to say nothing of history with its rise and fall of empires. He spends too much time reading all that old military history now. If he can’t be in this war, he can escape into others. 

There’s an old chestnut of a tale he keeps thinking of in this exile of his – the supposed words of a French king after the Battle of Arques. It plays on his mind, for he’s a soldier with no part in the war everyone else is engaged in. They fight – his regiment, the whole damned British Army – and he is not there. _We fought and you were not there – better to hang yourself._ He is not there, and he has no one to blame but himself. He blames Hanne sometimes, but often he finds it hard to work up the energy for it. Hanne, after all, is what she is, and always was. He’s the one who refused to see it.

He’s an embarrassment, sidelined by Whitehall for being tainted by association and no longer trustworthy, although not a traitor, not worth arresting, although others in the Anglo-German Fellowship were. So he came to Guernsey with his tail between his legs, but in an ironic twist, he’s now imprisoned under German occupation with enemy soldiers in his kitchen and a damned great gun in his back garden. There’ll be no one for tennis next summer, he can be certain of that. (There was no one for tennis last summer, either, and not just because that’s when the Germans came.)

So he rusts away with inaction and thinks of those words of Henri IV’s often – he is not there, better to hang himself, yes, better to hang. This is no life anyway; his spirit’s dead already. Why not draw the final line under it all? What other way to satisfy honour? Better that than sitting here, in receipt of humiliating kindness from the young soldiers billeted in his over large house. Of course, it’s no shame, not really, but he has to tell himself that every time, and he never quite believes it.

He’s on the verge of finally putting an end to it, or tells himself he is, when there’s a knock at the door, though it’s past curfew. When he answers, Generalmajor von Wittke is there somehow, like the ghost of his past, blown in by the storm all the way from Berlin, with uncomfortable memories scuttering in behind him like the leaves. Hanne’s brother.

“Good evening, General,” says von Wittke, stepping in out of the pouring rain with a small, wry smile on his face.

 

The first time von Wittke smiles at him like that, they’re standing about outside Rethondes in the Forest of Compiègne on another November day, over twenty years before. Von Wittke’s the most junior officer with the German delegation who have come, one trusts, to finally end the war. Like Laidlaw, he’s not included in the talks (if you can even call them that, given the way Marshal Foch’s laid down the terms, and the fact that whether or not Germany exists right now is a moot point). Laidlaw’s here for reasons of security while von Wittke is, he thinks, aide to one of the senior officers, or possibly a driver, or both – there are only four car-loads of them. And both are, of course, here to do what they’re told.

Laidlaw exchanges a wary glance with von Wittke. He needs to keep an eye on him while he’s excluded from the railway carriage where the business is being conducted. Von Wittke’s thin being is taut with anger. Laidlaw can’t exactly blame him, but fears he’s going to be treated to an incomprehensible Prussian rant. However, when Hauptmann von Wittke turns he merely gives that wry little smile, and holds out his hand. “Cigarette?” he says.

Laidlaw takes it, still awkward. “Bloody mess,” he says vaguely. 

It covers a lot of things when it comes to this supposed war to end all wars. If he had the choice, which he doesn’t, he’d rather still be in the Middle East with Allenby than one of those sent back by him to the Western Front. There was a commanding officer to serve under, whatever else one thought about him, and Laidlaw had been yelled at plenty of times like the rest of his subordinates. Rather that than here, though. He’d had his share of the mud and rain and stalemate before heading off to fight the Turks; he doesn’t want to be back.

Hauptmann von Wittke pauses a moment for translation, and then nods soberly. “Yes.”

Laidlaw’s German is poor and he doesn’t know how far von Wittke’s English goes, so he merely grunts and they smoke there together for a while. He can’t say sorry, because that’d be a damned hypocritical, puerile thing to come out with, but he’s not sure what else to say. Even he stops short of, “Bad luck, old thing, what?”

Von Wittke gives another smile, a slight shrug and then looks away, while Laidlaw finds himself unexpectedly thinking of things they could do instead that would be completely inappropriate, maybe even treasonable, before Armistice is finally signed and completely impossible afterwards. Must be the waiting around that’s getting to him – it’s not the kind of thing he makes a habit of. He does a mental recce round the area, coming up with a likely spot before he stops that particular train of thought. (Buggering the enemy, not the best plan. Right.) 

He clears his throat with a cough and can’t meet his counterpart’s gaze, even though no one can read his mind, least of all Hauptmann von Wittke – thank God. Laidlaw throws the cigarette down, and mutters an excuse to check on an entirely imaginary movement a few yards away.

Not long after, von Wittke is wanted again, and that’s the last Laidlaw sees of him for nearly twenty years.

 

Erich von Wittke returns with the delegation over the lines and retreats back into Germany. The Army is almost the last working part of his country: therefore it demobilises itself, the men discarding their uniforms and returning home. Von Wittke, though, is career military and even now has no real concept of laying down his arms. He fights revolutionaries in Berlin and, when there is a full government again, takes orders from them even when, from the Olympian heights of the military elite, he may despise them. 

He is a General in 1934 when he follows orders from his Commander-in-Chief to swear the required oath of loyalty to Hitler: he’s no wish to see his country a lost thing without a head again; and like others he imagines Hitler a mere transitory ‘decoration’. The regime may in any case restore some of Germany’s greatness. It’s not impossible.

It rapidly becomes evident that this is not true. His oath will eat him from the inside out and make him a traitor one way or the other, and the National Socialists will destroy his country, not save it.

 

Laidlaw may be a soldier, but he’s no wish to see another European war. God, once was enough, wasn’t it? He used to be a member of a previous Anglo-German friendship organisation, and when Mount Temple suggests he support the Anglo-German Fellowship, Laidlaw obliges, which is how he meets Hanne von Wittke.

He sees her first in early 1936 in _Der Rosenkavalier_ : her performance rivets him to his seat and brings down the house. She’s equally striking when he meets her after the performance. He never does understand what she sees in him until much too late. He’s wary at first, but like many another old soldier who’s had too little time for the niceties, he falls late, he falls hard, and he falls like a fool. They marry within months. Someone thinks Hanne von Wittke with easy access to England and the upper reaches of English society and its military commanders is a good idea, and Laidlaw unknowingly obliges them, seeing only his good fortune in winning her.

He meets von Wittke again at the wedding in Berlin, although he doesn’t recognise him. It’s only a brief encounter – the German Generalleutnant is too busy to stay long at the reception. There’s something familiar about the chap, he thinks, that’s all, as he makes awkward conversation with him. He’s popular with the ranks, they say, and Laidlaw’s familiar with his record – he’s a good officer, a good soldier. He trusts at least von Wittke could say the same of him.

“I should congratulate you,” von Wittke says, and it’s the sense of underlying amusement at something in his polite tones that tugs irritatingly at the edges of Laidlaw’s memory, though he can’t quite place it yet. “Welcome you to the family, perhaps.”

Laidlaw merely gives an awkward grunt. “Decent of you,” he mutters before von Wittke moves on and Hanne takes Laidlaw’s arm. He’s relieved, to be honest. Despite his membership of the AGF and even his marriage to Hanne, his conversational German is still not what it could be, and he suddenly wonders what sort of figure he cuts in his new brother-in-law’s eyes.

“Not sure if your brother approves,” he says to Hanne, watching the tall, thin figure in dress uniform walk away through the crowd.

Hanne smiles. “Oh, I’m sure he does. Erich sees us as natural allies, as we are, as we should be. Who wants another war?” 

She’s not the only one who says so: one or two of the other guests joke that they always thought it was Erich who was the Anglophile in the family, not Hanne.

 

It’s all dinners and champagne and music and talk with the AGF, and when they pass the summers in Germany – both of them, it’s a short idyll – and there are more dinners there with the Deutsch-Englische Gesellschaft. It takes quite a while before any of it strikes a more sinister note, especially to a man who’s besotted with his talented younger wife.

Laidlaw runs into Erich von Wittke again at a Deutsch-Englische Gesellschaft dinner, and watches him closely this time, trying to measure up his brother-in-law more accurately: his manners are impeccable, his stories make his neighbours laugh, and despite the slight but ineradicable stiffness of the military officer, he has an ease of manner with his fellow guests that Laidlaw has never had – never will. (Give Laidlaw action, not talk. But by all reports, that’s also true of von Wittke.)

But in between conversations, Laidlaw thinks, frowning over it, something slips in the Generalleutnant. He can’t quite pin it down, save that the light goes out of von Wittke’s smile too easily. That’s when it comes back to Laidlaw: him and von Wittke out in the Forest of Compiègne, and he wonders if the other man remembers. Probably not. How odd it should be him; Hanne’s brother.

Laidlaw, a little drunk now, decides to think of him as the spectre at the feast. In the morning he’s damned if he knows why: his brother-in-law turns up again and is only relentlessly cheerful and energetic in pursuit of his duty. And, as Hanne says, he’s just as eager for there to be no more wars between Britain and Germany as they are. There’s nothing unpatriotic about that.

 

The last time but one that von Wittke sees Laidlaw, he’s looking for Hanne, and finds only Laidlaw in the house. Until now on the handful of occasions they’ve met, Laidlaw’s been dignified – every inch a solider, always, but this evening it’s not hard to know what’s happened: the door is ajar, and everyone else out. Laidlaw’s due to leave in the morning and the house is already all but shut up in readiness. Hanne, von Wittke accepts with sadness but without surprise, is elsewhere already. Presumably Laidlaw’s sent his man out somewhere for the evening to spare his dignity while he works on drowning his sorrows. Von Wittke can’t say he blames him, but it doesn’t suit his purposes.

“I came to see Hanne,” he says, when he’s not sure Laidlaw has even registered his presence in the room. “I am too late. Yes?”

Laidlaw gives a short grunt of acknowledgement and stands, not too unsteady, and gestures to the nearest chair and hunts out a glass from the cabinet: that he has more difficulty with.

“General,” says von Wittke, who is now Generalmajor, an equivalent rank above Laidlaw’s Major General. “You are drunk, I think. There is still coffee in the house?”

Laidlaw turns. “Eh?”

“You do not want to miss your train – you do not want to miss your boat.”

“I’ll manage,” says Laidlaw. “Frankly, I think I’m not half drunk enough, dammit. If you want to find Hanne –”

Von Wittke shakes his head. “No. If she is not here, I know where I will find Hanne. I hoped – but never mind. I had intended to escort you both to the station. Now it will only be one, but I may as well still do so.”

“Oh,” says Laidlaw, and even if he’s not drunk enough, he’s not entirely up to this conversation, either, but the frown he’s wearing says he knows it. He is by no means a stupid man. Overall, von Wittke likes his brother-in-law very well. He only wishes the timing were better and that his sister liked him as much. “Right. Yes. If you insist.”

“So,” says von Wittke, with a brief smile, “go – wash your face. Then coffee. General.”

Laidlaw is also just drunk enough that he obeys the command of the superior officer without stopping to point out that von Wittke has no business giving orders to a British soldier in the first place.

 

“Damned keen to be rid of me, aren’t you?” says Laidlaw halfway through his coffee, evidently not particularly grateful to be sobering up already.

“You would not wish to stay,” says von Wittke. He’s still not sure of Laidlaw, given his membership of the AGF, but he’s fairly certain the man is no Nazi supporter. If he were, Hanne might have gone with him. “You’ll need a clear head for the morning.” _There might be trouble. ___

__Laidlaw nods, although without much enthusiasm in it. He probably wishes von Wittke would mind his own business, or go away, but von Wittke hides amusement in his coffee cup, since he has Laidlaw at a clear disadvantage: what could he say to dislodge a Wehrmacht officer of the highest rank from a summerhouse belonging to his family? Very little, von Wittke imagines._ _

__“It’s what none of us wanted, but here it is. Another damned war – got to go home. Nothing else I can do,” Laidlaw says, and then he manages a grin for the first time that night. “Don’t take it personally, but I trust we won’t meet for a while, not under the circumstances.”_ _

__Von Wittke smiles. “I think we might leave shooting at each other to the lower ranks, but yes. I agree.”_ _

__He doesn’t say, because there is no point if Laidlaw hasn’t understood yet, that his brother-in-law probably isn’t going to qualify for any trusted military position any time soon, and there is no danger of them coming into direct conflict with each other. Perhaps the British won’t care, of course; von Wittke doesn’t know exactly how things are over there, and Laidlaw is a damned good soldier, the sort of man they’ll need in the coming months and maybe years. Whatever the case, it is better for Laidlaw _not_ to be in Germany. Von Wittke only wishes he could have taken Hanne with him. She’s chosen her own path, but she is nevertheless his little sister: both family honour and affection would prefer her anywhere but here. _ _

__“Hanne – she has to think of her career, of course,” says Laidlaw, trying to recover his dignity: it’s not unsuccessful, he’s upright again, and looking to the morning. Or perhaps he’s trying to spare Hanne’s brother’s feelings. It could be. “Voice like that – can’t just give it all up, eh?”_ _

__Von Wittke agrees that it is so, and that Hanne’s Isolde has lately garnered high praise. One would not want to deprive the public, no. He doesn’t say that it’s always been a source of mixed feelings for the family: shame that she should take to the stage, and pride that she should make high art of it. Now it’s enabled her to gain the attention of men he’d rather she’d never even heard of: she’ll be with one of them now. Goering, perhaps. It’s appalling._ _

__He wishes that he could have warned Laidlaw before this, now that he understands him – he is a soldier, an officer, a man of honour – but it had already been too late when they first met._ _

__“I am sorry,” he says instead, in the end. “You and Hanne. I am sorry.”_ _

__He thinks for a moment that Laidlaw will take it for pity and be offended, but then he nods. “I think you mean that.”_ _

__“Strange as it may seem,” says von Wittke, “I do.”_ _

__When Laidlaw heads up to bed, von Wittke sits downstairs for a while and frowns over whether or not he dare trust Laidlaw with a message. He weighs up the risk for an hour and in the end decides no: Laidlaw is a soldier, an officer. He doesn’t yet understand, and he would not like it if he did. He might even, should there be any letters, any reconciliation, tell Hanne, and von Wittke knows where that would end. Besides, others have got a message through, he reminds himself. He believes it will all be over soon, and for that he thanks God: with the backing of the British, they will send in the Panzers and try Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, the whole damned pack of them, and make an end to it._ _

__

__It’s not how it happens, so they make new plans. They’re getting a little more desperate, less workable each time, von Wittke fears. In the meantime, he does his duty and on occasions he still sees Hanne. He doesn’t have to make her friends his – thank God. Aristocratic snobbery is expected, as is the sense of honour and morality to be offended at her blatant affairs. She not only sings for Hitler, she sings with Heydrich, and von Wittke says nothing when he can’t avoid attending; he applauds the performance like anyone else. The voice of an angel, someone says to him, complimenting his sister, but all he can think of is that she’s accompanied by the devil himself._ _

__He can’t warn her he’s plotting to bring an end to her world – that would be fatal – and he can’t pull her aside and gauge if she truly understands what she’s getting herself into, because if she does, that would also be fatal._ _

__Nevertheless, Hanne gives them their next hope after Müller’s mission to the Vatican does not end well: she’s a reminder of Major General Laidlaw who is not in England after all, but in Guernsey and now within their reach._ _

__So, as they fail in their plots, as they lose support within the military – the war is going well and Beck’s fears have been proved wrong, have they not? – and the imminent Polish invasion draws more of their members back to the Nazis out of hate for the Poles, Erich von Wittke travels to the Channel Islands and puts his fate and theirs in the hands of his brother-in-law._ _

__

__Now here they are, Laidlaw says, as they stand in his living room, and he finally rises out of his inertia, alight with the idea of a battle to fight. Von Wittke’s proposals bring back the spark of life back into him: go back to England through Spain and speak for the conspirators. It’s bound to fail, but it’s a heroic last stand at the worst, and the end of the war itself at best. Whatever the outcome, he’ll be a soldier again. He’ll do it._ _

__It’s von Wittke who seems to have lost something now he’s achieved his end, and is ridiculously alarmed when the Gefreiter from the kitchen walks in on them, given his rank. Laidlaw’s reminder that he’s reason enough to be visiting reaches him in ways he didn’t precisely intend: “We are kin now,” he says._ _

__Von Wittke lifts his head. “I trust so.” And while Laidlaw’s mind is focused on the longed for action ahead, he nevertheless catches the sudden vulnerability in his brother-in-law’s voice: von Wittke seems eager to snatch at the human connection between them while it lasts. Not easy to trust people in this sort of business, Laidlaw reasons, with passing compassion for the other, but there’s nothing he can do about it. For the first time, though, he sees he has von Wittke in his grasp; he understands the man._ _

__It’s a momentary irony: he can remember that long ago moment of connection between two officers on opposing sides, the unexpected stab of desire, and he wonders what would have been if he’d acted on it. Probably nothing different, and everything that came after would have been a damned sight more awkward. There’s little left of those two young captains now, and in any case, Hanne and Erich von Wittke may break their most solemn oaths, but not George Laidlaw. Even if he did, taking on brother and sister in turn is a bit much. He nearly laughs again, because it’d take almost as much of a nerve as him walking into the Whitehall and demanding to talk to Churchill, and he’s going to do that anyway._ _

__As to the other, it’s as inappropriate here as it would have been then, and – Laidlaw’s mouth twitches – God alone knows what the Germans in his kitchen would make of it. The young fellows’d probably die of shock._ _

__

__It doesn’t work, of course. The Gestapo are already onto von Wittke and the whole thing peters away into nothing before it begins. Laidlaw returns to his house at Torteval and removes his tie, sinking back into inaction and despair._ _

__There’s only one thing left to do now. One thing to do. He stares down at his tie. Helen Porteous said it when he went to her place to wait for his orders: she was always afraid they’d come for him, intern him, because of what he is._ _

__They’ll do it for certain now. Laidlaw, as he’s done before, looks from the light fitting to the solid dining table to the tie in his hand in calculation of the act. It’s not a dishonourable thing if it’s to save someone else – and if they take him to Germany, he’ll have to answer questions about what von Wittke wanted. He’s a soldier; he knows he can’t guarantee he wouldn’t tell them what they want to hear._ _

__No choice, really, he thinks, and straightens himself. Only thing left to do, to make up for it all. The one thing is to be sure he times it so that none of the chaps in his kitchen find him too soon._ _

__

__Von Wittke guessed before he must have a shadow; now he knows it. He keeps uncomfortable company, that’s what they say. He’ll carry on as long as he can be useful, but he has his service pistol close at all times. There are plans and names in his head they must never have, and he’d prefer not to give them the pleasure of executing him._ _

__Laidlaw had called his actions treason, but he thinks the treason was his oath, and he’ll do what he can to undo it before his country is destroyed. There may, however, be very little he can do now: he’s attained the highest rank in the German army yet he’s trapped and even, yes, afraid. There’s nothing they can use here to condemn him, but they’ll find some excuse – or take Laidlaw._ _

__He feels a pang at that, as though he’s lost something vital, even though it’s been so long since he saw his brother-in-law. He doubts he will see him again. There’s an irony when the man who best understands you is both your country’s enemy and your partner in crime._ _

__He’s escaped this time, for the moment. He’s almost sorry. The strain of secrecy and a double life has been starting to take its toll. He’s found the show harder to maintain, made telling, careless errors – this whole trip to Guernsey might be said to be one – and when one gets to that point, wanting it simply to be over, the end can’t be far away. It’s a death wish._ _

__“Bloody mess,” he says under his breath, as someone once said to him about another war._ _

__

__And in a garden in Guernsey, out in the rain, a young Gefreiter paces up and down, smoking, his hands unsteady as he pulls the cigarette from his mouth. The others have laughed off this morning’s discovery; they’d laugh at him now for his distress. The man was an enemy, and he knows that, curses his folly, but he’d found him –_ _

__He shakes himself again. The man was a soldier, he thinks. An officer. That’s what it is – damn the others._ _

__

__His Kommandant would agree with him. “A shame,” Major Richter says to Major Freidel when he hears. “A great shame.”_ _

__And Freidel agrees with a solemn nod, but thinks anyway that it is probably all for the best, though that he will not say to Richter._ _

**Author's Note:**

> The episode states that Laidlaw fought “with Allenby in Arabia”, but Allenby also sent 60,000 troops back to the Western Front in spring 1918, making their presence at the signing of the Armistice only highly unlikely instead of impossible. (I’m claiming poetic license.)
> 
> Richter notes that Laidlaw joined the Anglo-German Fellowship in 1933, but the Anglo-German Fellowship wasn’t established until 1935. (The later date better fits with his marriage in 1936, though, so it may just be a slip up in performance or script-editing.)
> 
> Von Wittke mentions being involved in resistance against Hitler by at least 1938, but no other dates are given. He talks about Beck and anti-war fears for Germany, but also seems to have a personal dislike of the Nazis and is in line with the more strongly anti-Nazi group in his account of the 1938 Oster Conspiracy, which might suggest longer-standing objections. 
> 
> Re: the ending. Dr John Lewis in _A Doctor’s Occupation_ mentions British Army officers trapped on the island, like Laidlaw, and that they committed suicide. In any case, in Sept 1942, the Germans interned many British-born islanders, which would have forced the issue for Laidlaw. Von Wittke might have managed to survive longer, but only until 20 July 1944, when he would have been killed, arrested or committed suicide along with his historical co-conspirators, after the plot to assassinate Hitler failed. (The episode, though, does suggest that the strain (and the Gestapo) are getting to him.)


End file.
